Freedom as an Artistic Action

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Jack Parrott

Freedom as an Artistic Action

Critical and Contextual Studies: Art

2014

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John Paul Sartre was one of the first philosophers to argue that human beings objectify

themselves when confronted with the gaze of others, and that in doing so they lose their

inherent freedom. Since he put forward this thought, others have attempted to understand

what Sartre meant by these musings, where they originated from and how they affect

individuals. Through the evaluation of Michel Foucault’s theory of ‘governmentality’, this

research project will attempt to identify and investigate the outside influences that shape

individuals, and the techniques that they use to influence them. The research project will

then focus on how it is possible to exist outside of these influences and make inherently free

decisions. The psycho-analytical theories of George Cockcroft are examples of ways to live

inherently free, chiefly in his use of chance to make life decisions. The Abstract Expressionist

movement of the 1950s will also be used as an example of individuals attempting to express

freedom through their practises and lifestyle. Foucault’s theory of governmentality examines

the ‘Panopticon’ as a technique used to manipulate and control individuals for the benefit of

a governmentality state, as opposed to the individuals themselves. The benefit of the state

emerges to be why these influences are put into practice and why, in Foucault’s view,

government was created in the first place. By analysing how the oppressions that were

created by these kinds of techniques were inflicted on individuals, it can then be examined

as to whether Foucualt’s theory can be conquered and if it is possible to make free decisions

so that we might shape our own destiny.

Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality is the study of how to govern society and the

art of government. It is essentially the idea of ‘a reasoned state that is governed according to

rational principles which are intrinsic to it and which cannot be derived solely from natural

or divine laws’ (Burchell, 1991). Foucault’s concept does not specifically evaluate the political

aspects of a government but also includes its religious, spiritual and educational principles.

Foucault believes that the idea that we need to govern ourselves begun around the 16th

Century. This was partly due to society’s need to establish the way it was to be spiritually

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ruled, in order that it may achieve eternal salvation for its population. It was also, in part,

due to a collective subconscious reaction to larger and more varied populations that needed

to be managed (Miller, 1993).

Foucault analyses two separate theories of government that existed within societies during

this particular period. The first was a secular-based theory in which the role of a statesman

was to control conflict between its populations, and to protect its territories from outside

threats. Simultaneously, theologians treated the role of government as a pastoral leader that

was responsible for the salvation of its population’s souls. Foucault believes it was in the 16th

century that these two theories of government began to merge together to form one

universal form that’s primary concern was ‘monitoring the outward and inward life of each

and every citizen’ (Miller, 1993). This new form of government is labelled by Foucault as an

‘administrative society’ or ‘police state’. Through innovations in political science and

educational methods, an administrative society or police state could control the

development of individuals to ensure the continuing strength and profit to the state.

Foucault reasons that it was in the 18th and 19th centuries that a governmental state

emerged from the system of an administrative society. To Foucault, a governmental state

had an unparalleled power over individuals in determining their fate. It worked in a

machine-like fashion, purposefully designed to ‘incarcerate solitary human beings’ instincts

for freedom’ (Miller, 1993). In an article published in The Threepenny Review, Foucault

described this form of government as a system that ‘reaches the very grain of the individual,

touches his body, intrudes on his gestures, his attitudes, his discourse, his apprenticeship, his

daily life’ (Dillon, 1979). The governmental state’s ability to intrude on every aspect of an

individual made it possible to alter an individuals’ very self. By doing this, the system denies

an individual the freedom to choose their own destiny or make decisions of their own free

will.

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In Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, he outlines how a

governmental state achieved this level of control over individuals, focusing on the 18th

century feudal system of justice, created by Jeremy Bentham, known as the Panopticon.

Foucault uses this system of justice to illustrate the tools that his concept of governmentality

uses to purposely construct the self of individuals and to what ends. He first begins by

describing Bentham’s Panopticon in its architectural sense;

‘at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is

pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the

peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width

of the building; they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the

windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the

cell from one end to the other’ (Foucault, 1975).

The Panopticon was designed by Bentham as a prison, however to Foucault it was an

architectural figure that represented a new way of organising social relations. He labelled

this new way of organising social relations as a ‘disciplinary power’ that functioned as a

regime to produce ‘docile bodies’ (McNay, 1994). These ‘docile bodies’ produced by the

regime would provide capitalist-based societies, that operated under Foucault’s

governmentality concept, with a productive, submissive and trained source of labour

(McNay, 1994). Capitalist-based societies’ would then in turn use this source of labour ‘so

that the greatest quantity of wealth is produced, that the people are provided with sufficient

means of subsistence, that the population is able to multiply’ (Burchell, 1991).

The way in which a Panopticon would produce these ‘docile bodies’ is through a ‘panoptic

mechanism’ that ‘arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see constantly and to

recognize immediately’ (Foucault, 1975). This ‘panoptic mechanism’ of the Panopticon could

observe an individual at all times within the parameters of the building. When an individual

is inside the Panopticon ‘the arrangement of his room, opposite the central tower, imposes

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on him an axial visibility; but the divisions of the ring, those separated cells, imply a lateral

invisibility. And this invisibility is a guarantee of order’ (Foucault, 1975). This form of

surveillance could permanently operate, even without an authority figure observing

individuals from the central tower of the structure. The sight of the central tower is enough

to inflict doubt on the individual as to whether or not they are being observed, meaning the

individual feels as if they are constantly under observation. This type of observation relied

on being unverifiable; the individual had to have the feeling of doubt about whether they

were being observed but also had be certain there was a possibility they could be being

observed. This also encompasses a notion of constant judgement and assessment of the

individual’s behaviour. By setting a standard of ‘normalised’ behaviour, control could be

regulated from judging an individual’s actions as to whether they cohere with the

standardised ‘normal’ behaviour. The ‘automatic functioning of power’ of the Panopticon

came from this ‘permanent visibility’ of the central tower that was inflicted on the inmates

(Foucault, 1975).

This form of surveillance ensures the order of the prison inmates, without the use of force

by the authority figures. Foucault states that this system designed to produce compliant

prisoners is the same system that governmentality regimes use to create submissive and

productive sources of labour. In the same way that if an inmate is being constantly observed

there is no danger of an escape, if a worker is under constant observation ‘ there are no

disorders, no theft, no coalitions, none of those distractions that slow down the rate of

work, make it less perfect or cause accidents’ (Foucault, 1975). If a worker also can also be

constantly judged and assessed, their development can be monitored to ‘distinguish laziness

and stubbornness from incurable imbecility’ (Foucault, 1975). Governmentality therefore

achieves its end of ensuring the ‘greatest quantity of wealth is produced, that the people are

provided with sufficient means of subsistence, that the population is able to multiply’ by

manipulating the consciousness of individuals so as to transform them into ‘docile bodies’

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(Foucault, 1975). The individual’s inherent freedom is denied to them and their self is

constructed to the benefit of outside powers, of which they have no control over.

There are possible ways in which one can break free from the influences of these outside

powers which Foucault believes constructs us, although it may seem impossible, as Foucault

describes, due to it being a ‘form of power [that] cannot be exercised without knowing the

inside of people’s minds, without exploring their souls, without making them reveal their

innermost secrets. It implies a knowledge of the conscience and an ability to direct it’

(Foucault, 1982). George Cockcroft is a psychologist who wrote the cult novel ‘The Dice Man’

in 1971 and experimented with chance in his psychological practise. Cockcroft’s theories,

that come from this practise and influenced his novel, coincide with Foucault’s concept of

governmentality. However, Cockcroft tries to realise a solution to outside powers

constructing the self by the use of chance to bring freedom to an individual. In Cockcroft’s

novel, the protagonist submits all his life decisions to chance by creating numbered lists of

choices and letting a die decide his actions. He also experimented with the use of this

technique on his patients and in his own life. In an interview with Cockcroft he stated that

‘today the machines have been planted inside us, planted there every day by

the corporate media who’s every emission is to spread the values of

consumerism and a society in perpetual war. The only way these internal

machines can be destroyed is within each individual. Our mental structures are

enslaved to a world view that can only lead to personal and societal

unhappiness’ (Cockcroft, 2013).

From this we see Cockcroft believes society manipulates our mental structures, and it works

in a machine-like way, similar to the ‘panoptic mechanism’ of surveillance that Foucault

describes in Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison.

Cockcroft proposes in this interview that the only way to combat the external forces in

society that seek to alter us ‘is within each individual’ (Cockcroft, 2013). He hypothesises

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‘diceliving’ as a potential way an individual can experience freedom that is beyond the reach

of society’s self-altering mechanisms. The act of diceliving’ involves ‘listing options that are

different from our habitual way of doing things’ and through this ‘we begin to realize the

degree to which we are enslaved to patterns of behaviour that are repetitious paths to

boredom and non-fulfilment’ (Cockcroft, 2013). Our ‘habitual way of doing things’ that

Cockcroft describes, could be compared to the ‘normalised’ behaviour that is set by

governmentality regimes to separate out individuals who do not have the capacity to

conform to the set beneficial standards of behaviour (Cockcroft, 2013). We can be freed

from the ‘patterns of behaviour’ that we are enslaved to by accepting all the responsibility of

our decisions to chance (Cockcroft, 2013). By doing this, a decision cannot be traced back

psycho-analytically to a conscious choice. It instead makes it an unconscious choice that is

protected from the manipulation of an outside influence, and brings freedom to the

individual’s decision.

However, Cockcroft’s solution of letting chance control an individual’s life-decisions poses

problems when practiced in real life. To submit wholly to diceliving, Cockcroft states that the

individual must become the ‘random man’, an individual who obeys no pattern of behaviour

whatsoever, meaning that the individual must be willing to do all options that it is possible

to list. The individual must be just as willing to give up all their possessions as much as they

are willing to murder someone. If chance deems they make that decision, then they must do

it if they desire to be completely free from manipulative influences.

We could ask how it is possible to make free decisions in this way, without the chance of

having to murder a person or commit other negative actions. Certain artists have attempted

to address this through practices and their lifestyle. Abstract Expressionism was an artistic

movement in American painting that was a response to society’s self-altering mechanisms.

The movement positioned itself around artists whose work not only operated outside of the

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established traditional forms of painting, but also around individuals who operated outside

the norms of society. Robert Motherwell, a significant figure in the movement, stated that

‘the popular association with art is its remoteness from the symbols and values of the

majority of men’ (Motherwell, 1944). From this we see Motherwell recognises the artist as a

figure who can distance themselves from the normalised values of society. In modern

society, particularly in America, the normalised values which artists strived to distance

themselves were, what Cockcroft describes as, ‘the corporate media whose every emission is

to spread the values of consumerism and a society in perpetual war’ (Cockcroft, 2013).The

artist was an individual that rejected society’s attempt to make them into a ‘docile body’

that the corporate media desired them to be (McNay, 1994).

William C. Seitz describes the figure of an artist as someone

‘who lives in a world of ideas vastly different from that of the businessman, the

merchant, or the worker…Society connotes to him not a social organism of

which he is part, but a huge middle-class world of property, manufacturing,

buying and selling – a society to which he is alien’ (Seitz, 1983).

The workers, merchants and businessmen he describes have been altered by the

standardising of what is ‘normal’ behaviour in a consumer driven society. This ‘normal’

behaviour in this circumstance is to undertake a profession that is based around

consumerism, which in turn profits the wealth of society. Artists become singled out in this

situation by the panoptic mechanism of identifying an individual’s behaviour that is not

‘normal’, so that they may be isolated from the majority. An artistic profession does not

contribute to, what Foucault describes as, the aim of society which is to ensure ‘the greatest

quantity of wealth is produced, that the people are provided with sufficient means of

subsistence, that the population is able to multiply’ (Burchell, 1991). Cockcroft suggests that

‘the only way these internal machines can be destroyed is within each individual’ and

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instead of using chance, Abstract Expressionist artists sought it through their individual

practices.

By functioning in isolation outside of the panoptic gaze of society, Abstract Expressionist

artists discovered a freedom in the actions of their practices. It could be said that they

metaphorically escaped from the surveillance of Bentham’s prison central tower and no

longer had to behave in the manner of a prison inmate. Willem De Kooning describes that

20th Century artists ‘were relatively freer than ever before because of that indifference’

(Kooning, 1951). The indifference described by De Kooning being to that of society, meant

their actions were freed from outside powers because what they did was not profit driven

like the ‘docile bodies’ of the worker, businessman or merchant (McNay, 1994). Their actions

were instead unconsciously driven and in turn, inherently free. Mark Rothko also describes

this indifference society felt towards the artist as ‘difficult for the artist to accept’, but that

the hostility could lead to ‘true liberation… both the sense of community and of security

depend on the familiar. Free of them, transcendental experiences become possible’ (Rothko,

2006). Freedom and thoughts beyond the common-place come from being alienated by

society, but they also come from the abandoning of the familiar. Cockcroft describes the

‘familiar’ as ‘patterns of behaviour that are repetitious paths to boredom and non-fulfilment’

of which we are ‘enslaved’ to (Cockcroft, 2013).It is clear then that both Cockcroft and

Rothko believe these patterns of behaviour exist, and to become alienated from them gives

an individual the opportunity to construct their own self rather than have it manipulated to

benefit an outside power.

Through the progression of this research project, it becomes clear from Foucault’s theory of

governmentality that there are systems in place to alter our own selves and that they make

us have almost no control of our own destiny. This control over an individual’s development

is so effective that the individual is virtually unaware that is happening. Its mechanical-like

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process of working also means that, like the surveillance system of the Panopticon, it

requires no force to function and is in a constant state of operation. Foucault offers no

alternative to how an individual might make decisions free of manipulation, but from his

definition and analysis it becomes possible to explore ways in which to do so. Cockcroft’s

theory of making unconscious decisions through the use of chance determining an

individual’s actions also recognises the effects of outside powers on the self, but the

practical sense of diceliving is not something to be easily exercised by an individual. Abstract

Expressionist artists offer the solution to escaping manipulation from their particular outside

influences by simply existing as an artist. By existing as an artist, an individual alienates

themselves from the consumer society they inhabit and escapes the influential gaze of

governmentality. Any action an individual does is inherently free because by rejecting the

normalised behaviour set by society, the panoptic mechanism excludes them. The

mechanism distinguishes those who cannot work towards the profit of society from those

who can, but by doing so the individual is left to his own devices and is free to make their

own decisions.

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Bibliography

Burchell, G., 1991. The Foucault Effect, Studies in Governmentality. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

Cockcroft, G., 2013. Interview with George Cockcroft (aka Luke Rhinehart) [Interview] (6 May

2013).

Dillon, M., 1979. Conversation with Michel Foucault. The Threepenny Review, Issue 1, pp. 4-

5.

Foucault, M., 1975. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Random House.

Foucault, M., 1982. The Subject and Power. 8th ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Kooning, W. D., 1951. What Abstract Art Means To Me. The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin,

Volume 18, pp. 5-6.

McNay, L., 1994. Foucault, A Critical Introduction. s.l.:Polity Press.

Miller, J., 1993. The Passion of Micheal Foucault. London: HarperCollins.

Motherwell, R., 1944. The Modern Painter's World. In: D. Ashton, ed. The Writings of Robert

Motherwell. New York: University of California Press, pp. 9-14.

Rothko, M., 2006. The Romantics Were Promoted. In: Writings on Art. New York: Yale

Univeristy Press, pp. 58-59.

Seitz, W. C., 1983. Abstract Expressionist Painting in America. Washington: Harvard

University Press.

Freedom as an Artistic Action

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